World Changers' youths put faith to work

Jeffrey Aydell should be dead.

A month ago, the 14-year-old was in a near-fatal car accident. His mother fell asleep at the wheel and smashed the car into a guardrail.

"The front of the car was up against my chest, the hood was up against my head," the high school sophomore from Denham Springs, La., recalls. "I had to pull myself out."

Coming upon the wreck, Jeffrey recalls, the emergency medical technicians were surprised any of the passengers lived.

The teenager's arm was fractured, and a piece of the bone is being held in with pins. He wears a clunky black splint that spans from wrist to bicep.

But Jeffrey thinks he survived for a reason. He's part of a team of 23,000 teenagers nationwide volunteering in a Christian-based project called "World Changers."

"I think God let me survive because he wanted me to come," he says while rolling primer paint on a church wall. "It's the reason I came."

This week in Tampa, 10 World Changers crews - 91 volunteers altogether - are donating labor. Five of the crews are partnering with churches and running vacation Bible schools; the rest are working on construction projects.

Jeffrey came to Tampa with a youth group from his church, Zoar Baptist of Baton Rouge, La. He and his teammates spent 36 hours roofing, painting, scouring sinks and scrubbing toilets at New Tampa Baptist Church in Lutz.

It's also a chance for strangers to forge friendships. Most crews comprise youths from several churches; many of those who came to Tampa hailed from the Southeast.

World Changers, a ministry of the North American Mission Board based in Alpharetta, Ga., designates teams of teens and adult chaperons to different locations and projects - building homes, repairing roofs, running kids' camps, serving meals to the homeless and assisting the elderly.

From March to August, groups travel to cities across the country, from Buffalo, N.Y., to San Diego. By the end of the summer, World Changers estimates, the network of volunteers will have donated more than $16 million in labor.

Compare that with the group's first project 19 years ago, when 137 youngsters and adults met in Briceville, Tenn., for a week. In 1992, the ministry added international sites to its list of destinations.

Communications specialist Addie Shue, 20, worked as a World Changers volunteer for five years before she stepped into a staff position.

"I've learned so much," the college junior says, "but really the whole purpose of World Changers is to put action to our faith and to show the love of Christ through our actions."

Donna Knight, 49, serves as a chaperon for her group from Eastside Baptist in Marietta, Ga. She agrees that Christians can best demonstrate their beliefs by helping others.

"It's one thing to sit in a pew," she says. "It's another thing to live out your faith."

Joining Knight as one of the adult volunteers from the Marietta church is Rachel Barnes, 19, who attends college in Nashville. This week in Florida, there was no sunbathing on the beach. Barnes rolled up her sleeves and went to work.

"If it's service, then I can do it," says the nursing major. However, she does have one condition. "I don't go up on the roof. I'm afraid of heights," she says. "So that would be a stretch for me."

Instead of earning extra cash as a summer lifeguard or grocery store cashier, the middle and high school students pay for the privilege of doing community service. It comes to an average of $260 a student, which goes toward their housing and food.

Andrew Barmer doesn't mind. The high school sophomore from North Carolina says he "wouldn't miss this for hardly anything." It's his third time volunteering with World Changers.

"It's fun," he says. "Even when you're working, you're still having a blast with all your friends."